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Does anyone know whether I need to wash plastic traps before resetting them (didn't break skin or anything on the previous mouse). I have noticed that the mice seem to be avoiding traps after a mouse has been caught in them but I can't work out if it is to do with a scent, whether it is behavioural(they've seen the dead one there and learnt) or whether I am just imagining things :hug:

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Well in the interests of fast removal (as we were close to having a mini plague for a while there) I have had three methods running recently. I have had the plastic traps which have always killed the mice(it actually says on the pack they have a better kill rate than the old wire ones), poison (not my first choice but unfortunately became necessary) and a live catch box trap. Any that end up in the box trap go into my wheelie bin and get a holiday to the tip

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It didn't seem to bother our mice. Infact when they saw a dead mouse in the trap they cam up and ate it. It was horrible I would go and empty the traps to find little meaty skeletons sticking out on=f the trap with its head perfect. Sometimes only the head was left.

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I have had the most success by putting them next to the wall between the skirting board and the plastic tub we put our recycling in as this was a route they often used to take. I am also using the Tomcat bait stations and have had a nearly 90% reduction in mice at a guess just trying to get the last few straglers and stop any new ones from moving in now.

As far as trap bait I have been using a tried and true that we use to bait live catch wildlife traps for small marsupials. Peanut butter, oatmeal and a pinch of birdseed all mixed together and put in a blob on the trap, caught one in each of my traps with this the first night

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I've found that mice follow scent trails so not washing the traps helps catch more. Also Bunnings sells a gluey substance that is irresistible to rodents - I left a bottle lying around and the micies chewed through the plastic top to eat it!!

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Well we have had victory!!! We are pretty sure there was only one pair and they produced a single litter (they weren't around long before we became aware of them) A few weeks ago we caught the adult male he was the first to go) which is probably lucky as of course without an old enough male the female wasn't going to produce anymore. Over the past week we caught 4 babies. Then on Sunday morning we woke to a horrible smell in our entrance hall. I spent the afternoon pulling apart the hallway cupboard and eventually found the adult female(the stinky one) and another baby dead from the poison we had put out. We have left the traps and poison out for now but we have seen no new evidence of mice since then so we are hoping that was all of them